UND92,96

I agree. In hockey alone, I believe UND has been on national TV (ESPN or ESPN2) six times since 1997. Add to that four times for womens basketball and once for football during that same time period. Being on national TV 11 times in six years is unheard of for a predominantly division II school (and the Sioux went 9-2 in those games, incidentally ). NDSU will likely never receive the sort of national recognition that UND has gotten and probably will continue to get, unless you feel having scores on the ESPN News ticker constitutes national recognition.

I don't know this for a fact, but I doubt there's a whole lot of head-to-head competition between NCC schools over a particular juco player, unless he's playing at NDSCS, Fergus Falls, Lake Region, or another school in the immediate area. Considering how many junior colleges there are all over the country and that the coaches/asst. coaches probably all have various different connections, I'd be surprised if they run across each other all that often recruiting the same junior college player(s).

It looks like Ross Brennan may not be done after all. There was a blurb in the Forum today saying that he was sitting out spring ball for personal reasons, but it didn't say he had left the team permanently. Hopefully he'll be back in the fall. Also, Carney transferred to Scottsdale Community College.

Looks like NDSU also had some basketball defections. Shawn Gabbert, Tyrone "The Travelling Man" Terry, and Jason Smith won't be back. Terry is really an enigma. He was North Dakota's Mr. Basketball a few years back. He originally committed to UND after his junior year, then changed his mind and went to division I Texas-San Antonio, then transferred to NDSU, now is transferring to Valley City State.

I don't mean to disparage the kid's game, but after watching him in high school and considering he averaged less than 2 points and 2 boards a game at UNI this year, I don't think he would have much, if any impact in the NCC. He's big, but he doesn't play big and he's not very aggressive. I think Kyle Nelson is a much better prospect, and Nelson would at least have four years of eligibility instead of the two Godfread has left.

I'm not convinced that Billiter is going to do much at Augie. He's kind of returning to division II with his tail between his legs. He left NDSU in order to get a dI job within a few years, and he failed. Even Ray G. was able to do that and he wasn't anywhere near as successful as Billiter at NDSU. At the time Billiter was at NDSU, UND recruited relatively few jucos, and the program suffered as a result since the more successful programs were getting those players. While UND is not at a point where they were in the early 90's, the program is pretty solid for the most part recruiting a mixture of high school players and jucos and/or dI transfers. While recruiting jucos is not something everyone agrees with, I have no problems with having from two to four on the team at one time. Any more than that and you risk losing any sort of continuity in the program in that you have to rebuild every couple of years. I think UND will have a pretty good team with the likes of high school recruits Lindahl, Rypkema, Johnson, Jahner, Bradley, Doyle and Gutter, and transfers Austin, Jacobson, and perhaps two to three others. At least one, and probably two power forward/post players are needed, along with possibly another true point guard.

Jeff Brandt and Josh Johnson are not returning for their senior seasons: Herald article Johnson's departure makes a certain amount of sense because he just hasn't ever shown much ability, but Brandt? Sure, he had a poor season, but he has shown to be a very solid NCC player. The good news is that it opens up some scholarship money to get some players who will help immediately, i.e. juco transfers. Between Mike Johnson, Rypkema, Lindahl, Jahner, Aaron Austin, Adam Jacobson, Josh Doyle, Steve Bradley, and two or three jucos, the team should still be alright next season.

Now it appears that Michigan Tech is NOT dropping football after all, according to an article posted on d2football.com.

One other Fargo product is Cory McLean from Fargo North, who I believe plays for Notre Dame. It does seem that Fargo is a little underrepresented in the division I college hockey world considering how many kids play or have played hockey in the city.

I only hope this title makes the infamous "SDSU fan," wherever he's hanging out these days, a little less bitter and surly. But I'm not holding my breath...

Not much new info, but this article on spring football was in Saturday's Heraldo: UND football opens spring practice

I'm afraid I can't agree that there's no risk. Power points (strength of schedule) are gathered by winning games. You still get points for losses, but only a relatively small number comparitively speaking. Therefore, unless you happen to win one of the higher division games, you are essentially giving away those power points that most other teams you are competing against for a playoff spot are accumulating. Again, this can be made up for against teams in your own conference by subsequently winning the league, but you can't really make up those points against a team from another league like the MIAA if they did not lose in their non-conference schedule. That's my point. If you win the league, then your non-conference losses probably won't hurt you much. But if you were to finish second in the league, then that second or third loss can be a big problem. That's why I feel it's a risk to "play up" when you're division II. I agree that it doesn't seem to be as big of a problem in I-AA because so many teams do it. Look at the records in a late season Top 20 poll and there's a lot of losses there. But in division II, and in particular in the Midwest Region, anything more than one loss puts your playoff hopes in serious jeopardy. I figure that the league schedule is tough enough without putting yourself at serious risk of losing one or more times during the non-conference schedule.

Ultimately, strength of schedule is going to be determined primarily by how you do in the league. Central Missouri and Pitt St. have both made the playoffs in recent years with non-conference schedules that included NAIA opponents. But they did well in their league, so they made the playoffs anyway. So long as UND wins their three non-conference games, they will not be penalized at all by the fact that the opponents are probably going to have poor records. It's still going to come down to how they finish in the NCC that will determine whether they go to the playoffs or not. Keep in mind that with regard to strength of schedule, a win over UMC counts for more than a loss to Davis or Montana or any other high quality opponent. That's why it's such a risk to play these types of teams.

And we all know how committees love to follow these criteria. (See the thread discussing how NDSU was seeded ahead of UND in the womens basketball regional despite UND having an advantage in 4 of the 6 criteria while NDSU had the advantage in just 1).

B.K.: I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. No offense intended, but if the Bison start out 1-2, I'd be interested to hear whether you still think it was a good idea to play a brutal non-conference schedule.

So are you saying that UND hasn't made the NCC look good over the years? I seem to vaguely remember a rather nice run by the Sioux just two years ago which made the NCC look pretty good. Quite frankly, if you make the playoffs you have ample opportunity to see how you stack up against teams from other conferences and/or regions. Getting there is the most important thing, and UND has done that as well or better than any NCC team over the past decade. I would prefer to play Pitt St. and Cal-Davis in November rather than September. I will stand by my opinion that while it's all well and good to play a very tough non-conference schedule, the margin for error for making the post season is so small that it may not be the wisest move if you have serious playoff aspirations. Unlike in basketball or most other sports, each loss in football is crucial and very difficult to make up for with such a limited number of games. St. Cloud just needed to beat Mankato last year in order to make the playoffs. Their non-conference schedule did not keep them out--the second loss did.

Certainly I'm not saying that a win by St. Cloud over Pitt wouldn't bolster their playoff hopes. But by the same token, if they lose at Pitt, which is quite possible, I think it will hurt them far more than would two or three wins over the likes of Northern State or the other less-than-stellar teams St. Cloud played last year. As fans, we can talk all we want about how great it is to play a strong non-conference schedule. But if you happen to lose one or two of them and then ultimately lose a playoff spot to a team like Central Missouri who scheduled and beat two patsies, then what good was it to have that tough non-conference schedule? Yes, you will potentially be rewarded by beating an out-of-conference power. But if you lose, you will be equally punished. Whether it's worth the risk or not is up to each individual school. With regard to UND playing Crookston, I am not happy about it, either. I'm not going to try to defend it, but I don't know what difference it should make to a fan of another school who UND plays. No matter how bad you may think UND's non-conference schedule is, your team will have the opportunity to play the Sioux head-to-head and decide on the field who is more deserving potentially of a playoff spot.

The game is today.

On paper, Newberry College would seem to be a weak opponent. But the ironic thing is, if you are judging the caliber of an opponent strictly by what their 2002 record was, wouldn't that mean NDSU's 2003 non-conference opponents should view 2-8 NDSU as a weak opponent this year, too? Central Washington was a good example of a team that appeared on paper to have been weak, but obviously was not. I'm not saying that Newberry or Mesa St. are going to be some kind of juggernaut, but on the other hand, we can't possibly know how good or bad they actually will be this year, either. I think that the relative strength or weakness of a non-conference schedule with regard to playoff positioning is overrated. If you play division II opponents and beat them, that's probably enough if, and this is a big "if," you take care of business in the conference. Unfortunately, now that the NSIC is apparently going to get a playoff team every year, you almost have to win the NCC and/or have only one loss in the regular season in order to make the playoffs. It's sad, but that's the way things are today. I must disagree with you about why St. Cloud didn't make the playoffs last year. Check out playoff team Central Missouri's non-conference schedule last season: Lincoln and Sterling (KS)! That's way worse than St. Cloud's was! The key is not losing more than once. That doesn't exactly provide much incentive for playing a brutal non-conference schedule, in my opinion. I would be satisfied with a happy medium of good-but-not-great opponents like Winona, New Haven, or perhaps a Great Lakes team (other than Grand Valley). Playing Montana and Cal-Davis is admirable, but unless NDSU goes at least 2-1 in its non-conference games, which is a tall order, they would probably have to win the NCC to get in. I don't claim that it's fair, but it's reality.

I really have no idea why this series is continuing. UND obviously has nothing to gain because the previous UMC games have all been extremely lopsided, and Crookston has little to gain because, well, the games have all been extremely lopsided. I understand the difficulty of scheduling decent non-conference opponents without having to shell out big bucks, but I would have to assume that at a minimum, you can get one or more home-and-home series with decent opponents. Please, Roger, no more UMC games after this year! Nobody wants to see this game! But with all that having been said, UND does still have the best home conference schedule in the NCC so hopefully the Sioux can take advantage of it. Considering last year's record, I imagine the Sioux will be picked in the middle of the pack in the NCC, but I honestly think that UND can win the league if the defense is a little more consistent and Bowenkamp makes good decisions. The talent is there, and the team should have sufficient motivation after last year's disappointing performance.

I believe KFGO did lay off three people, but Ed wasn't one of them. I don't believe there has been anything to suggest that the football on-air personnel will be different for next year.

Congratulations to Jerome Beasley on this honor. Beasley named player of the year Jerome was the only NCC player named to the Daktronics team. I thought TenBroek may also get selected. I would have to think he was also one of the best 15 players in division II.

Time will tell as to Nelson. My fear is that he goes to SDSU or someplace and develops into a force and we are left to ponder what may have been. UND does have a pretty talented point guard coming in by the name of Josh Doyle from Iowa. He's supposed to be an outstanding shooter. I don't know whether he'll be red-shirted or not. I strongly suspect that UND coaches are actively trying to land a couple more juco impact-type players, either a post or a point guard or possibly both. They already signed one impact player in Aaron Austin, and hopefully Adam Jacobson will help also.

I agree that as a junior, he was not particularly impressive. But he has improved fairly dramatically in the past year, to the point where he was a Mr. Basketball finalist. As I stated above, kids of his size (6'9") who actually have touch and coordination are very rare in this area. He's a pretty aggressive shot-blocker, a good shooter from the free throw line in, and with some added bulk and strength, he could be a very good college player. It all depends on how much he works to get better. Grant was fairly impressive last year in that he had pretty good skills and could handle the ball well for a bigger kid. But he is at least 2" shorter than Nelson, and didn't play particularly big, in my opinion. In terms of upside, I would say Nelson has much more potential than Grant, who incidentally ended up at Northern State. Grant didn't seem all that interested in being a post player, and his limited quickness and athletic ability would seem to limit his effectiveness on the perimeter in college, particularly on defense.